An Old Essay
by doubelieveinmagic23
Summary: Lily finds her final essay at Hogwarts while sorting through old stuff and is reminded of how it brought her and James together. One-shot


**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. Unfortunate.**

An Old Essay

Lily Evans sat comfortably in a green armchair. James had insisted that they do Harry's room in green. Lily had been all about the pale blue that was traditionally the color for a baby boy's room, but James would have none of it. So now she sat in the green armchair that she always sat in, watching Harry sleep peacefully. It had taken three rounds of Hush Little Baby to get him to finally fall asleep, but it was worth it. James had promised to cook dinner, and what happened after… she was pretty excited.

It would be nice to finally have some alone time with James. The past week had been crazy, what with changing their secret keeper to Peter and all. James had worried that Sirius was in danger. He figured that Voldemort would never guess to go after Peter, and so they had done the ceremony. Lily thought Dumbledore would have been a better choice, but she trusted James's judgment.

She stood up cautiously, and tip-toed across the room. She slipped out the door quietly, thanking the gods above that Harry had not woken. She resisted the urge to check on James and dinner and instead decided to give cleaning out the storage room a try. She opened the door and stared at the huge mess in front of her. Moving had been quicker than expected and resulted in a room full of stuff to be sorted through. She sat cross-legged on the floor and opened the first box she saw.

Letters, photographs, and a few old essays fell out of the box into Lily's lap. She smiled, seeing one of her and James, kissing on their wedding day. She carefully sorted through which photos she wanted to keep (which ended up being all of them) and then vanished the essays with a flick of her wand. She reached the final essay and stopped herself. She recognized it as one of the more important ones. Her final essay at Hogwarts, actually… the seventh year paper. She began to read:

_The reason that love is more powerful than any spell is that love is a greater magic than spells. It is the most powerful magic of all, really. Even Muggles understand the significance of as simple an act as loving someone. By letting go of human selfishness to the point where one is willing to sacrifice everything for another person's happiness is magic, pure and simple. It is a different magic than the kind that turns porcupines into pin-cushions. It's a deeper, sacred magic; a law of nature that is stronger even than the Laws of Spoken Magic. It cannot, however, be explained as easily as such laws. Albert Einstein, possibly one of the most intelligent Muggles ever, sums this up nicely. "How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?" Love cannot be explained in a term paper, nor in books, nor ever, really…_

Lily smiled and stopped reading. How she had dreaded that paper. She closed her eyes and leaned against the wall, remembering the night she had begun to write it.

~several years earlier~

Lily Evans threw herself across the couch, pulling a red and gold cushion over her head and pressing her face into the couch. It smelled like stale chocolate frogs. She pulled her face away and coughed. She really needed to talk to James about having Sirius over.

"Problems, Lily?" asked an amused voice.

Lily's head shot up, and she stared at the intruder upon her private moment of irritation. It was James Potter. Who else would be in the Head's common room at four in the morning on a Thursday night? She didn't ask where he had been, since she already knew the answer to that question. It was a full moon.

"It's this paper we have to write!" she exclaimed, struggling to turn herself over on the couch and sit up. She ended up rolling off the couch onto her butt. She tried to pull herself up, but James was already there, lifting her by the arms.

"Have you been eating enough, Lily? You feel awfully light," James said, letting go of her so that she could collapse on the couch again.

"I've been eating fine," she replied. It just that I'm not six feet tall like some obnoxiously tall people, so I weigh a bit less than you.

James wisely bit his tongue instead of letting out a remark about obnoxiously short people. Lily was barely five foot. "So which essay are you struggling with?" he asked instead.

"You know… the seventh year essay… the one that Dumbledore requires every seventh year to complete before they graduate… the one about why love is more powerful than magic… the one that makes the Slytherins want to rip their hair out…"

"Yes, I'm aware, Lily," James said, interrupting her before she continued to describe the essay.

"How far along are you?" she asked.

"I'm done," James said.

"You're done!" Lily half yelled. "How can you be done? What do you know about love?"

James frowned. "I'm not going to be offended by that statement because I know that you are completely out of your mind right now."

"Sorry," Lily muttered, glaring at her essay. There was a moment of silence.

"Why don't I look at what you have?" James asked finally. He glanced at Lily who was lying on her back, stretched out across the couch, taking up as much room as possible. He sighed when she didn't respond or move. "Fine." He lifted Lily's feet and sat down, letting them fall back down over his lap.

"I've been looking for quotes," Lily said to the ceiling as he picked up the paper.

"'Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love.'" James read aloud. He glanced at Lily.

"Neil Gaiman said it," she replied, not looking at him.

"Who's he?" James asked.

"I dunno," Lily replied. "Some Muggle author."

"This has nothing to do with love being stronger than magic," James said.

"Exactly! I can't find any quotes that aren't super sappy! This is the only thing I could find that applies to my life! Dumbledore wants it to apply to our lives!" Lily exclaimed, sitting up.

"This applies to your life?" James asked.

"Yes."

"Sounds like your life sucks," he said, putting down the paper.

"Tell me about it," Lily mumbled. She closed her eyes and threw herself backwards against the couch.

"How about you tell me instead?" James asked. He picked up one of her feet and started massaging it.

Lily let out a content sigh. "That feels great… oh, the quote. Right… So I sort of love this guy. Okay, that's not right. I do love him. 100% sure. He doesn't love me or even like me that way. He told me he just wants to be friends."

"I see," James said. "So what are you going to do about it?"

"I dunno. That's the thing. I want him to be happy and all. I want him to be with me, though. I'm not sure what to do. I can't tell him…"

"You haven't told him you love him?" James interrupted. "How do you know he just wants to be friends?"

"He said so! He said to me how happy he was that we were just friends! I'm not going to embarrass myself and ruin our friendship! It would hurt too much," Lily explained.

"You should give it a try. Maybe you'll be surprised. If he doesn't love you and gets mad, I'll beat him up for you," James offered.

Lily smiled, pulling her feet out of James's hands and sitting up. "That'd be pretty funny to see."

"You think I can't take him?" James said, standing up with an offended look on his face. It gave way to an amused smirk when Lily shrugged.

"I dunno. He's a pretty tough guy," she said, giggling.

"Who is he?" James asked. "I'll be you a million galleons right here that I can kick his ass from here to Beauxbatons where he can stay with all the other sissy boys!"

Lily laughed aloud. "I'll take that bet."

"No really, Lils. Who is he?" James asked, all traces of joking gone. The mood of the room shifted from happy to serious in a split second.

"I can't tell you," Lily said, frowning.

"Well you should at least tell him. You owe it to him," James said. He started to walk away, and then stopped. "One of the quotes I used in my paper is by Mother Teresa, this really great Muggle lady. 'I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love'. Think on it."

Lily watched him walk towards his room, and then jumped up. "James!" she called. He turned around to look at her. She stood up and looked into his eyes. "If you get mad, you owe me a million galleons."

"What?" James asked, confused.

Lily forced herself to start walking towards him. As she walked, she found more and more courage within. She reached him, and grabbed him by the tie, pulling him closer, until their noses bumped against each other. She stood on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. "I said, 'if you get mad, you owe me a million galleons.'" She pulled away and pressed her lips against his. He didn't respond. She pulled away.

"Never mind. Forget about the bet. Forget I even said anything," Lily said, letting go of his tie and feeling more humiliated than she'd ever felt in her life. She turned away too soon to see the look of shock and jubilation that had cross James's face.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked her as she walked away.

"My room," she muttered.

"I don't think so," James said. He caught her by the arm and spun her around. "I'm not done with you quite yet." He bent down to kiss her properly. Lily froze for a moment, and then threw her arms around James's neck, kissing him back.

"I love you," she felt him whisper against her lips before he pulled away.

"Yeah. You know how I feel about you," Lily replied, grinning.

"Um, no. I'm not letting you off that easily. I've been waiting to hear this for years," James said, tightening his hold on her waist so that she couldn't escape.

"I love you," Lily whispered, looking into his eyes nervously. She smiled and giggled.

James grinned widely and picked her up, spinning her around the room.

"James! What do you think you're doing?" Lily asked. "We're going to crash!"

They ended up falling onto the couch, breathless with laughter. Lily wrote her essay the next day with James's help. If she remembered correctly, they'd been too busy that night making out like the teenagers they were.

~present~

Lily grinned, remembering how happy they had been. She set the essay down in the pile of memories to keep. It was an important one, she thought. She stood up.

"Lily!" James yelled from downstairs.

Lily rolled her eyes. He'd probably set the kitchen on fire trying to light candles and be romantic like last time, precious boy. She yawned and stretched. "Coming," she called.

"Lily, it's him!" he yelled. She froze. "Take Harry and run!"

Lily turned and rushed to Harry's room, picking the child up. He opened his eyes sleepily and gave her a reproachful look for waking him up from his nap. However, as if he sensed that the moment called for him to not cry, he kept quiet.

"Harry, I love you," she whispered fearfully to the little boy, brushing his dark hair away from his forehead to kiss him gently. "You must grow up strong and be just like your father. I'm sorry that I can't live to see it. You must always remember that we love you so much." Lily saw a flash of green light shine against the walls, coming in from cracks around the door, and knew that James was gone. Tears began streaming down her face. She wished desperately that she had her wand on hand and hadn't left it in her room. She set Harry down and turned to face the door. She couldn't disapparate because of the wards. Pity that they worked both ways- it left her and Harry trapped. The door was blasted down by magic.

"Give me the boy, and I may let you live," came the cruel voice of Voldemort.

Lily shook her head. "Please, not Harry," she whispered. "Please."

"Give me the boy. I don't have to kill you," he repeated.

Lily shook her head once more. She would die if only Harry could live. She loved him too much to just step aside. As Voldemort's wand raised, James's words from years previous rung in her ears, and as the green light surrounded her, she understood them better than she ever had. "…if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love…"


End file.
